Roger Ebert announced on Sunday that his movie-review show "Ebert Presents At the Movies," could end this year if the production does not find a financial underwriter.
Ebert took to his Chicago Sun-Times blog to share the news. He directly stated that the show would have to end should it not find an appropriate funding solution.
Ebert and his wife Chaz (the show's executive producer) have been the primary financial backers of the program. "Ebert Presents" also received what Ebert called "$25,000 in generous backing from the Kanbar Charitable Trust." Ebert referred to his attitude as "living in a dreamland," when he assumed he would be able to bear the financial burden of backing a show while also searching for various funding opportunities. "We can't afford it anymore," Ebert wrote.
"Ebert Presents" appears on PBS in 50 different markets across the country, according to Ebert. The show's distributor is American Public Television (a public broadcasting group separate from PBS). Ebert wrote, "now American Public Television wants to know if they can tell their member stations we'll be back in 2012...Unless we find underwriting, I'm afraid our answer will have to be 'no.'"